9TH INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY,EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

9TH INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY,EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE

CONFERENCEPROCEEDINGSCONFERENCEPROCEEDINGS

ii

Published by IATED Academy www.iated.org INTED2015 Proceedings 9th International Technology, Education and Development Conference March 2nd-4th, 2015 — Madrid, Spain Edited by L. Gómez Chova, A. López Martínez, I. Candel Torres IATED Academy ISBN: 978-84-606-5763-7 ISSN: 2340-1079 Depósito Legal: V- 362-2015 Book cover designed by J.L. Bernat All rights reserved. Copyright © 2015, IATED The papers published in these proceedings reflect the views only of the authors. The publisher cannot be held responsible for the validity or use of the information therein contained.

CREATING ADVANCED QUIZZES USING MOODLE

I. Escobar1, C. Suárez2, A. Rojas3, S. Maffey4, S. Llorens1, A. Najera1, E. Arri-bas1, A. Belendez5

1 Universidad de Castilla La Mancha (SPAIN) 2 Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí (MEXICO)

3 Universidad del Tolima (COLOMBIA) 4 IPN (MEXICO)

5 Universidad de Alicante (SPAIN)

Abstract Taking on the role of adviser, the teacher must now assess the student´s learning process, not merely to sanction their results but to help the students achieve his best results through a constant supervi-sion of his work. In this way, even though there may be final exams, these won´t be the only means of assessment. Sometimes the great amount of work that constant supervision implies may prove to be cumbersome. For this reason it is useful to employ questionnaires using Moodle. In short, if our pur-pose is to use Moodle to assess the student´s competence acquired through an exam, calculated question types are very useful to generate questions in this virtual domain. Therefore each student will have different questions and we will avoid situations in which the students share the answers since they will have to know the procedure to arrive at the solution.

Keywords: Moodle, questionnaires, calculated question type.

1 INTRODUCTION With the signing of the Bologna declaration, new educational model attempts to link theory and prac-tice, it seeks to promote the effort and cooperative learning, it wants to facilitate learning through li-braries, virtual campus and it aims to assess learning through continuous assessment systems [1]. Taking on the role of adviser, the teacher must now assess the student´s learning process, not merely to sanction their results but to help the students achieve his best results through a constant supervi-sion of his work. In this way, even though there may be final exams, these won´t be the only means of assessment. Thus, Education focus on new procedures to facilitate the constant supervision of the student´s learning, such us objective tests (true/false, multiple-choice…), short-answer tests, extend-ed-answer test, oral tests…anyway, there is a greater variety of tools.

Finally, in this paper we focus our attention on the objective tests from all these procedures. An objec-tive test is a psychological test that measures an individual's characteristics independent the examin-er's own beliefs, usually by the administration of a bank of questions marked and compared against exacting scoring mechanisms that are completely standardized, much in the same way that examina-tions are administered [2],[3].

Moodle (acronym for Module Object- Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) is a highly flexible Learning Management System, LMS that allows you to create online learning communities. Some of the main features of LMS are to manage users, resources, enrollments, quizzes and quiz questions, syndication, external newsfeeds can be displayed in a course and forums, blogs, among others [4].

Sometimes the great amount of work that constant supervision implies may prove to be cumbersome. For this reason it is useful to employ questionnaires using Moodle [5]. It provides various types of questions: calculated, description, essay, matching, embedded answers, multiple choice, short an-swer, numerical, random short answer matching, true/false. In this paper, we will focus our attention on calculated questions. With this kind of questions we can generate multiple versions of a question with different numerical values. Therefore each student will have different questions and we will avoid situations in which the students share the answers since they will have to know the procedure to arrive at the solution.

Proceedings of INTED2015 Conference 2nd-4th March 2015, Madrid, Spain

ISBN: 978-84-606-5763-70119

With this method, we intend that students evaluate their own learning. For example, in our classes, quizzes are used as mini tests at the end of every topic. These questions are marked automatically, so that immediate feedback on the level of acquired knowledge is obtained. In this way, students can used quizzes for self-assessment.

2 CALCULATED QUESTION TYPES Calculated questions offer a way to create individual numerical questions by the use of wildcards, which are substituted with random values when the quiz is taken.

The main aim of the calculated questions is to generate multiple versions of a question with different numerical values. To this end, we need define, at least, one wildcard in one of the answers.

In short, if our purpose is to use Moodle to assess the skills acquired by the students through a test, calculated questions are very useful for generating questionnaires in this virtual platform. Therefore each student will have different questions and we will avoid situations in which the students share the answers since they will have to know the procedure to arrive at the solution.

2.1 Wildcards Wildcards are a set of data in Moodle. When Moodle delivers a calculated question to the students, the wildcards used in the wording of the question are replaced with randomly selected values. Howev-er, these values are not completely random, they are randomly selected from a predefined dataset of possible values. In this way, we have control over the possible chosen values in order to make sure the answers of the question are truthful.

3 CALCULATED QUESTION CONFIGURATION We can find three types of calculated questions in the questionnaires offered by Moodle: calculated questions, calculated multiple-choice questions and simple calculated question, where the latter is a simpler version of the above.

To create or modify a calculated question, or calculated multiple-choice question, there are three pag-es to work through, which we will detail below.

3.1 Editing a calculated question We know that the questions are stored, collected in categories, in a Bank of questions. To create a question, once we have entered to the Bank questions submenu of the Administration block, we select the question category, we click on the Create new question button, and we choose the type of ques-tion with which we want to work [6]. Let us first calculated multiple-choice questions. In Fig. 1 we show the screen to edit the question1, where only the fields marked with an asterisk are required.

1 The figures of the paper are in Spanish because we work in the Spanish version of Moodle in our course.

0120

Figure 1.- Screen to edit a calculated multiple-choice question.

• Name (Nombre de la pregunta). We give a descriptive name to the question. • Question text (Enunciado de la pregunta). This corresponds to the wording of the question we

want the students to answer. It must include all the information they need to calculate an an-swer. Therefore it must contain at least one wildcard, inside curly braces. For example, "If a tree is {h} m tall, its height expressed in feet is ...".

• Default question grade (Puntuación por defecto). The maximum number of marks for this ques-tion.

• General feedback (Retroalimentación general). This is text that appears to the students after he has answered the question

• One or more answer (Una o varias respuestas). It determines the number of right answers in the question

• Shuffle answers (Barajar respuestas). If the box is activated, the order of the answers varies randomly in each trial, provided that “Shuffle within questions” in editing the questionnaire is al-so enabled.

Then we enter the possible answer to the question. They are marked with the heading Choice 1, Choice 2, Choice 3, etc (see Fig. 2). All of them have the same structure.

Figure 2.- Editing the answer of a calculated multiple-choice question.

0121

• Choice (Elección). We add here the formula of the answer, as a rule as we would on a calcula-tor. As it is shown in the example of Fig. 2, the answer must begin with the = sign and it has been inside curly braces. Furthermore, calculated questions can use more than simple arithme-tic operators[7].

• Grade (Calificación). In this box we choose the grade that the students will get if they give this answer. This should be a percentage of the total marks available. Thus, if the question has only one correct answer then we can assign 100% for that answer. Besides, we can apply penalties in the wrong answers. In the multiple-choice questions is always advisable to apply penalties

• Correct answer shows, Format (Mostrar y Formato). They determine the precision of the an-swer. We use these settings to select the number of decimal places or significant figures we want to use.

• Feedback (Retroalimentación). The students will see this text if they enter this answer.

For calculated questions, the edit form is similar to that we just discussed, with some small differences that we will detail below:

• Tolerance (Tolerancia). As for numerical questions it is possible to allow a margin within which all responses are accepted as correct. The "Tolerance" field is used for this. However, there are three different types of tolerances. These are Relative, Nominal and Geometric.

• Units (Tratamiento de las unidades). We can also specify units for the answer.

Finally we can click "Next page" to save what we've done and move on. If we are editing an existing question, we can click "Next page (new question)" to create a completely new question based on an existing one.

3.2 Dataset properties Each wildcard that we specify in the answer formula must have an associated set of possible values, this is, its dataset. In Fig. 3 we show the second page to edit a calculated question in Moodle.

Figure 3.- Screen to edit the wildcard properties.

Each of the wildcards is listed on this page along with a choice of dataset: private (only used by this question) or shared (shared with other calculated questions in the same category). To continue, simply choose your preferred dataset for each wildcard, then click "Next Page".

3.3 Choosing the dataset Finally, we only need to generate the set of possible values that each wildcard involved in the question can take. For this end, there are two ways of creating values: we can type the data manually, or we can have Moodle generate them for us (see Fig. 4).

0122

Figure 4.- Screen to edit the dataset to the wildcards.

• Adding values manually. In this block Param (Item para agregar), we enter the value we wish for each of the wildcards. Then we scroll down to the Add section (Agregar) and we click the Add button, selecting a single value for the wildcard. Finally, we repeat the above steps as many times as the number of values we want to give wildcards.

• Adding values automatically. In the block Param, we choose the range of values where we want to be the wildcard, the number of decimal places for the value and the way in which Moodle will choose the values between the limits ( 'uniform' means any value between the limits is equally likely to be generated; 'log-uniform' means that values towards the lower limit are more likely). Next, in block Add section, we indicate Force regeneration, we choose the number of sets of random values we wish to add to the list and we click the Add button.

4 CONFIGURATION QUESTIONNAIRES Once we have created a question bank, we will create a questionnaire and add the questions we want. In the following, we will describe how to configure a questionnaire

0123

4.1 Adding and editing questionnaires Within the course where we want to generate the questionnaire, we activate the drop down menu Add an activity or resource and we select Questionnaire. In Fig. 5 we show the configuration screen of the quiz.

Figure 5.- Configuration screen of a questionnaire.

• Name (Nombre). We give a descriptive name to the quiz. • Description (Descripción). We write every suggestion that we consider appropriate to answer

the questions. • Time (Temporalización). We set the date window for users can complete the questioonaire. • Grade (Calificación). When multiple attempts are allowed, there are different ways you can use

the grades to calculate the student's final grade for the quiz: o Highest grade, the final grade is the highest (best) grade in any attempt o Average grade, the final grade is the average (simple mean) grade of all attempts o First grade, the final grade is the grade earned on the first attempt (other attempts are ig-

nored) o Last grade, the final grade is the grade earned on the most recent attempt only

- Layout (Esquema). In this block we select the question order. If 'Shuffled randomly' is selected, then the order of questions in the quiz will be randomly shuffled each time a student starts a new attempt at the quiz. The intention is to make it a little harder for students to copy from each other. Also, we limit the number of question per page.

- Question behaviour (Comportamiento de las preguntas). We have seen that the order of ques-tions can be randomly shuffled. We can also made the same with the answer choices within each question.

- Review options (Revisar opciones). This section controls what information students will be shown when they review their past attempts at the quiz, and during the attempt in adaptive mode. It is a matrix with check boxes, Fig. 6. For each of the items, we can determine the timeframe when students will see them: During the attempt, Immediately after the attempt, Lat-er, while the quiz is still open, After the quiz is closed.

0124

Figure 6.- Options to control information visible to users.

• Appearance (Apariencia). We select the way in which the grades, number of digits in the grade, user´s profile picture will be displayed.

• Extra restrictions on attempts (Restricciones extra sobre los intentos). In this block we can de-fine password, network address, delay between attempts…

• Overall feedback (Retroalimentación global). Overall feedback is shown to the students after they have completed an attempt at the quiz. The text that is shown can depend on the grade the students got.

Finally we click on the save change button

4.2 Adding questions to questionnaires Once we have configured the quiz, now we must add questions. For this, we click on the questionnaire created, where we will see the screen shown in Fig. 7. In the left column we see the list of questions of the quiz (which is empty if we just started). In the right column, we have the questions organized by category in the question bank.

Figure 7.- Adding questions to the quiz.

Once you have accessed the quiz editing screen as above, you can add questions from a number of locations:

• Click the "Add question" button to begin a new question • Click "Show" to reveal the contents of the question bank and then choose a pre-made question

or click "Create new question" • Click "Add a random question" to add a random question, providing there are questions in the

question bank already. This might be useful if you have students in a class taking a quiz at the same time, because they are unlikely to get the same questions at the same time. The same question will never appear twice in a quiz.

Finally, Moodle also allows Import and Export questions so that we can exchange questions of our question bank among teachers or between different courses

0125

4.3 Administration of questionnaires Once we have created a questionnaire, the quiz module has additional settings which may be changed by an administrator. From this module we can perform different operations such as editing settings, editing quiz. Also, we can preview the whole quiz by clicking the Preview link. A teacher may also access quiz results by clicking on the quiz name in the Navigation block. This opens up other links, enabling them to view by grade, by correct response, by statistics and by manually graded re-sponses.

5 CONCLUSIONS In an educational process, the skill acquired by the students can be evaluated by different methods, one being the so-called objective test. Sometimes the great amount of work that constant supervision implies may prove to be cumbersome, especially if we have a high number of students. For this rea-son it is useful to employ questionnaires using Moodle. Thorough the quiz module, we can create a list of questions that students must answer them to get a grade. We can take continuous monitoring of student´s learning without manually proofread the tests.

Of all the possibilities that Moodle offers us in the quiz module, calculated questions are very interest-ing for our purpose. Therefore, in this chapter we have learned to edit and create these kinds of ques-tions, stored in a bank of questions and insert them into a questionnaire.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Isabel Escobar wishes to acknowledge the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad the support throughout the grant DPI2012-32994

REFERENCES [1] http://www.educacion.gob.es/boloniaensecundaria/

[2] Brown, F. (1980) Fundamentos de Medición y Evaluación en Psicología y Educación. México, El Manual Moderno.

[3] Thorndike, R. L. (1995) Psicometría aplicada. México, Limusa.

[4] A. Saorín. Moodle 2.0. Manual del profesor. 2012.

[5] I. Escobar, E. Arribas, A. Nájera, G. Moratalla, A. Belendez, “Generador de cuestionarios usan-do Moodle”, Experiencias de innovación docente en la enseñanza de la física 3.0, pp.83-96, (2013).

[6] Curso Fundamentos de Física I del Grado de Ingeniería de Sistemas Audiovisuales de Teleco-municación de la Escuela Politécnica de Cuenca. Plataforma Moodle. UCLM.

[7] https://docs.moodle.org/all/es/Tipo_de_Pregunta_Calculada#Sintaxis_de_la_formula_de_la_respuesta_correcta

0126